Iran is ‘moderate’ at uranium enrichment... but still ‘on its march’ towards nuke – Israeli minister

Israel, a country that neither denies nor admits to having nuclear weapons, has warned that while Iran’s uranium enrichment may seem moderate, there’s no reason to breathe easy – it must be “a slow march” towards the bomb.

Yuval Steinitz, the country’s Energy Minister and member of the Israeli security cabinet, asserted that Iran “has begun – while it is a moderate rise right now – but it has begun to raise, to break out of the uranium enrichment curbs that were imposed on it,” he told Ynet TV. 

Upping the ante, Steinitz, a renowned Iran hardliner, also claimed that Tehran “is brushing off the red lines that were agreed [under the 2015 nuclear deal and] that it has begun its march, a march that is not simple, toward nuclear weaponry.”

The 2015 accord (otherwise known as the JCPOA) sets out the permitted level of uranium enrichment at under 3.6 percent, enough for generating electric power but not enough to produce a nuclear weapon. Tehran announced in early May that it would speed up the enrichment, saying it was a response to Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the international pact.

After all, the Israeli minister’s suspicions had created a feeling of déjà vu, as they bear striking resemblances to what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been repeating for several years. In 2012, he famously took the role of a school science teacher showing the UN a cartoon nuclear bomb which, he claimed, was being developed in Iran. 

In the years that followed, Netanyahu continued stoking fears over Iran’s unwavering nuclear ambitions, either by showing slides and rolling out shelves of allegedly top-secret files or by making countless speeches on the matter.  On Sunday he again said the move by Iran “was very, very dangerous.”

But while Israeli officials continue denouncing Iran for stepping over some “red lines,” their own country is believed to have gone well beyond that. Back in June, the reputed Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reiterated in a comprehensive arms control report that Israel has 80 to 90 warheads in its stockpile.

Israel has never confirmed nor denied the possession of such arms.

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